On November 27, KAIST International Student Association (KISA) held their semesterly scavenger hunt, “Amazing Race”, offline. This was one of the first in-person events that celebrated the official announcement of an offline winter semester and the heightened possibility of continuing so in Spring 2022.

A total of 25 teams of international and Korean students raced to complete creative challenges all over campus for monetary prizes and complementary snack packs. The players solved puzzles, raced to eat chocolate bars with only a knife and a fork while wearing oversized gloves, completed partner challenges, and more, while traversing the campus from the International Kitchen in W7 all the way to the Clinic (E21).

Excited, yet cautious to host an event of this scale once again, KISA started off slowly. The number of participants for the game was reduced, and team sizes were limited to two people. KISA collected vaccination information during registration and took temperature readings throughout the game in compliance with the school and government’s COVID-19  regulations.

After the numerous lockdowns and social distancing restrictions, the event was considered an emotional relief and a great success for student life by both the staff and the students. “Amazing Race was a great getaway from all my depressing courses… It was a great way to relieve stress right before the finals,” shared a participant.

However, the Events Division encountered the opposite challenge they faced at the beginning of the pandemic. Since most previous KISA games for the last four semesters were held online via Zoom and most members of KISA who had experienced offline semesters had graduated, the team highlighted the challenges of organizing offline events. “An event of this scale — especially offline — was a lot more complex [than online events] because there were so many things to consider, so we needed to plan thoroughly and have members on standby in case things went wrong… All of this meant a lot of back-and-forth emails and text messages for us all. On the bright side, communication via chats during the game seemed like a breeze as everybody was used to it, which surely made the event easier to maintain,” said Maida Aizaz, the Head of the Events Division at KISA.

Starting from March 2022, KISA expects to hold many more offline events, slowly restoring student life back to normal for international students, especially those who were unable to enter Korea for a while.